Skramble
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
_________________________

Description 

Scramble is an early horizontally scrolling shoot'em up game, which was released in 1983. As a spacecraft commander, you have to struggle with your spacecraft through narrow systems of caves and cities, while you are attacked by launching rockets, ufos and other enemies and at times get into meteorite showers. Meanwhile, you have to watch your fuel scale. In order to refuel you have to bomb buildings labeled "FUEL" with a bomb you drop - additionally to your sideways shot - with every klick of the fire button. 

Of course you cannot compare the graphics with those of the later 1980s shoot'em ups. If you consider the release year, it is quite okay. There is no music in Skramble, unfortunately, but at least there are nice explosion FX and a hypnotizing humming of the ship. 

 Only once in the game, at 20.000 points, you are given a bonus life. 
 No fear of rockets, they appear much more dangerous than they actually are. In the sectors with UFOs or meteors the rockets never start. Don't ignore them anyway, because you easily can ruin your score if you let every rocket escape and only focus on the objects on the ground. 
 At the beginning your tank seems to be inexhaustible. This changes rapidly after you have played 

 Solution 

Playing through the complete game once is REALLY easy. It gets a little trickier when the canyons get narrower. But actually there are only a few really challenging points in sector 5, especially if you do not emulate but play with a real C64. You should fly as far right as possible there in order to navigate backwards(left) and upwards/downwards at the same time. Finally drop a bomb and destroy a very last object in sector 6. You will receive 800 for the destruction plus 2.500 bonus and a "congratulations" note, then the game starts anew, theoretically endlessly and with only a slight increase in difficulty, except for the faster consumption of fuel. 

 Miscellaneous 

 The C64 game Skramble is - same as the Atari competitve product Beta Lyrae - a homecomputer conversion of the Konami-Arcade game Scramble from 1981, which is known as the first multi level shoot-'em-up in the world (!). 
 There is a brandnew "4th of July 2008" crack version of this ancient game released by the Walker Group. It allows soft scrolling, alternative graphics and slightly increased difficulty. Aditionally, there is a manual and a highscore saver in this version. It is a matter of taste whether that version is better or worse than the original. Of course it is not the real thing any longer, but the design is definitely nicer and the game is more challenging due to faster meteorites. For fans of the 1980s group Eagle Soft, the Walker Group Intro might provide a nice nostalgic surprise.


http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/Skramble
